VALLEYWIDE : Local Heroes Lauded for Courageous Acts

A 64-year-old nurse and a gardener were among Los Angeles County residents honored Wednesday for acts of courage and heroism--often at the risk of serious injury to themselves.

“These people are being rewarded because they witnessed some kind of outrageous act that demanded a response, and they stepped forward,” said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti in presenting the awards. “You took the risk and each of you has made our community safer.”

Two who decided to get involved were Jose Rivera, 26, of North Hollywood, and his nephew Mark Rivera, 18.

In Mission Hills last January, the co-workers were installing a stereo in a car when they looked up to see a handcuffed man run past. A police officer was in pursuit but far behind.

“I thought this guy may have just killed somebody,” said Jose Rivera, who dropped his tools and gave chase.

He caught up to the man just as he started scaling a chain-link fence.

“He kicked me a few times and got over, but my nephew was already on the other side,” Jose Rivera said. “I finally dropped him, and he started saying, ‘Let me go! Let me go! I’m going to come back for you!’ But I just said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you go.’ I just held him down until the police came.”

The defendant later pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and was sentenced to 16 months in state prison.

Four neighbors at a Van Nuys apartment building were honored for helping to capture a thief.

Bernardo Pineda, 48, a gardener, noticed a man breaking into a car in the parking lot of his apartment building in January. Pineda asked his neighbors, Luz, Gonzalo and Aurelio Escobedo, to help him. They tackled the thief, who was armed with a metal pipe, tied him up and waited for police to arrive.

Pineda and the Escobedos, who all received awards, later testified in court against the defendant, who pleaded guilty to auto burglary.

The plight of a baby locked inside a car on a hot day led Cecily Spitz, 64, of Northridge, to get involved.

Spitz, a nurse who works at a Burbank hospital, heard the baby screaming from a parked car in Reseda on a sweltering August afternoon last year. The car’s windows were open three inches.

Spitz had stopped at an ice cream stand when she heard the screams of the 20-month-old baby, whose name she never learned.

Spitz quickly took a fan belt from her car, looped it around the window handle of the car and lowered the window far enough to reach inside and unlock the door.

More than 20 minutes later--after Susan Mangini, 39, of Reseda, and her mother, Shirley Mangini, of Canoga Park, helped Spitz wrap the sweat-drenched 20-month-old in towels soaked in cold water--the father returned.

“He demanded we give him the baby,” recalled Susan Mangini, who, along with her mother, was also honored. “He was very angry. We told him we were not going to give up the baby until the police came.”

The father, a high school teacher who said he had “lost track of time” while browsing in a nearby record store, was arrested and sentenced to four days in County Jail, 100 hours of community service and parenting classes.

Others presented with awards included William Doucette, 42, of Simi Valley, Gary Gleb of Sherman Oaks, Michael Chediak, 28, of Newhall, and Robert Magee, 32, of Fullerton.

Prosecutors across the Southland picked winners for the Courageous Citizens awards, which were presented at a Rotary Club luncheon in Van Nuys.